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The Love Story of Orpheus and Eurydice

Orpheus, the son of the muse Calliope, was a gifted musician and poet whose music could charm all living things and even the stones of the earth. His lyre, given to him by the god Apollo, produced melodies so beautiful that rivers stopped flowing, animals gathered to listen, and the world itself seemed to pause when he played.

Orpheus fell deeply in love with Eurydice, a woman of great beauty and grace. Their love was pure and intense, and soon they were married. On their wedding day, however, fate struck a cruel blow. While Eurydice wandered through a meadow, she was bitten by a venomous snake. The poison took her life almost instantly, and she was taken to the underworld, leaving Orpheus in unimaginable grief.

Unable to accept her death, Orpheus decided to do the impossible: descend into the underworld to bring her back. Armed only with his lyre and his unshakable love, Orpheus made his way through the dark and treacherous path to the land of the dead.

When he arrived, he played his lyre and sang of his love and sorrow. His music was so heart-wrenching that the souls of the dead wept, and the great rulers of the underworld, Hades and Persephone, were moved to compassion. Hades, known for his stern and unyielding nature, granted Orpheus’ request—but on one condition:

"You may lead Eurydice back to the surface, but you must not look back at her until you both have reached the world of the living. If you turn to gaze upon her too soon, she will be lost to you forever."

Orpheus agreed and began the long, perilous journey back to the world above. Eurydice followed silently behind him, her footsteps faint, like whispers on stone. As they ascended, the light of the surface grew brighter, but Orpheus could not hear her, and doubt began to creep into his heart. Was she truly behind him? Had the gods tricked him?

At the very last moment, just steps away from the world of the living, Orpheus’ resolve broke. Overcome with fear and longing, he turned to look back at Eurydice. In that instant, her figure began to fade. Her eyes met his with a mixture of love and sorrow as she was pulled back into the underworld.

Orpheus cried out in despair, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to return to the underworld, but the gates were closed to him forever.

Heartbroken, Orpheus wandered the earth, playing his lyre and singing songs of loss and love. His music, once full of beauty and joy, became filled with melancholy, and the world mourned with him. He rejected the company of others, consumed by his grief.

In some versions of the myth, Orpheus was eventually killed by the Maenads, followers of Dionysus, who were angered by his refusal to embrace life and joy. Other tales say he was simply taken by the gods, who pitied him and reunited him with Eurydice in death.

Thus, Orpheus and Eurydice’s love story became a timeless tale of devotion, loss, and the fragile line between life and death. It reminds us of the power of love and the tragic consequences of doubt and impatience.

shout out to the lyric theatre for giving us the authentic hadestown experience by making us watch a little man walk endlessly through hell with no hope and no end in sight 🙏🙏

hermes in hadestown is the exact opposite of an unreliable narrator. a tortured narrator. a little *too* reliable. incredibly aware of exactly what is happening at any given moment, vaguely spoiling it for you in the beginning, despairing every second of it. but ultimately motivated to continue to tell the story over and over and over with a smiling face for the sake of the audience, and for the sake of the characters themselves, singing it again to keep them alive. knowing how it will end, but singing it again so that the cycle may restart and eurydice may come back to life. enduring the misery of it all, over and over, holding the knowledge of what will come to pass but continuing anyway to see orpheus happy just one more time before it all goes down in flames again.

Hadestown: a Song-by-Song Summary

ACT 1

In which Hermes spoils the entire plot

In which Eurydice is Sad (part 1)

In which Orpheus pulls a baddie by being whimsical

In which Orpheus cements his status as a Disney Princess

In which Orpheus tells a story

In which everyone dances drunk

In which Orpheus and Eurydice cuddle

In which everyone dances drunk (but sad and groovy)

In which Orpheus is Dumb (part 1)

In which Orpheus tells a story (but sadder)

In which everyone grooves while doing a slavery and also Orpheus yells and also Persephone is pissed at her husband

In which Hades definitely looks like he's about to cheat on his wife

In which the Fates are high school bullies (part 1)

In which Eurydice is Sad (part 2)

In which Orpheus realizes he's Dumb (and sings about it)

In which Hades is a dictator and Disney Villain (part 1)

ACT 2

In which Persphone is Drunk

In which everyone grooves while doing a slavery again

In which Eurydice is Sad (part 3)

In which Orpheus tries to Disney Princess his way put of Hell and fails

In which Hades is an asshole who doesn't believe in love

In which Orpheus gets the Disney Princess almost beat out of him

In which the Fates are high school bullies (part 2)

In which Orpheus is Sad and accidentally starts a labor revolution

In which Hades and Persephone do marriage counseling

In which Hades is a Disney Villain (part 2)

In which Orpheus tries to Disney Princess his way put of Hell and succeeds this time

In which Hades and Persephone complete their not-getting-divorced arc

In which Orpheus and Eurydice complete their not-getting-divorced arc

In which the Fates are high school bullies (part 3)

In which Hades is a Disney Villain (part 3)

In which Hermes tells Orpheus not to be Dumb

In which everyone works it out on the remix

In which Orpheus is Extra Dumb

In which everyone is Sad

In which everyone is less Sad and more drunk

just watched i saw the tv glow and one thing i haven't seen anyone bring up yet is that in the final seconds of the movie, right when it cuts to the credits screen, you hear the sound of rain. which is what maddy says it was like when they woke up in the pink opaque as tara. implying that owen/isabel, too, is on the precipice of making it out. is this perhaps a more optimistic interpretation of the ending than intended? probably, but i feel like it's worth mentioning

2nd watch, a few new details:

On the first watch, I was like "of course Owen couldn't go with Maddy the first time, her mom had cancer :(". But this time I caught that Maddy went missing "a few weeks" after Owen's mom died. Owen had nothing left to stay for. Maddy probably waited around for those extra weeks, just in case Owen had a change of heart. And yet,

The first time we see the dress flashback, it's through what seems like a relatively objective perspective. The second time we see it (as they walk to the grave), the memory has taken on the vhs-fuzz and aspect ratio of the pink opaque tapes. The real becomes unreal, an impossible fantasy, "kid stuff"

Happened to see a captioned screening this time, and the Tara from the streaming version is described as "Fake Tara."

The tv guide page Owen finds by the electrical field is for "season 6, episode 1: Escape from the Midnight Realm"

Mr. Melancholy and Maddy's ex friend who accused them of dykery ("like a secret agent sent to ruin my life") were the same actor

All the school hallway motivational posters are thematically relevant, but this time I caught the "the only easy day is yesterday" and "courage: without it, no other virtues matter" ones

You can see the emotional shifts between Owen and Narrator Owen in real time (ie, Owen looking distraught as the firefighters surround Maddy's tv, then dropping the expression and looking coolly into the camera as she starts to narrate again)

There's an interesting recurring thing where audio from the near "future" plays over footage from the "past." ie, we hear Maddy's planetarium monologue, while we watch Owen still walking to the school to meet them. Something about time not working right, something about Owen playing back memories that already happened, something about inevitability and walking down a path with a fixed ending

Void High School, or VHS

in the closet? nah man i’m in a coffin. i’m underground. yeah bro im being buried alive but it’s okay dude my heart is still beating. yeah man there is still time

Just finished watching I Saw The TV Glow and really want to make a joke about Maddy knowing Owen was trans before Owen did with how intimate the tattoo drawing scene was but I cant because I am literally shaking with the amount of feelings this movie made me feel what the fuck

i found your heart and it was still beating. there is still time. i found your heart. bury yourself with me. i can't stay please come with me. you can't stay here either. help me i'm so chained to you someone tell me what to do.

hrrr I Saw the TV Glow is still rolling around in the back of my mind. it's hitting me somewhat belatedly that what seemingly starts as mainly an identity story turns out - toward the final act - to also be a love story. two queer kids finding each other (again). the bond they forge (have always had). the feelings that start to grow (were always there) despite the lie they're living. one trying to save the other, and failing. the frail hope at the end that maybe what they had mattered after all, even if they never see each other again. maybe because they knew each other, someday things will be better.

idk. so much of the story feels so lonely. they're awkward with each other at first and they don't really "get" each other and they're absent from each other's lives for long periods and they don't have anyone else. but it's all a lie - they were best friends, they knew each other better than anyone, they are who they are because they knew each other, they were not alone. no matter how bleak the setting is, this fake world can't obscure the truth. they'll never forget each other. it will always have happened, it will always have mattered.

it's so hard to put into words but Owen/Isabel and Maddy/Tara make me so crazy, the way everything in the world works to drive them apart and yet not even losing their memories can destroy the connection between them. and it's not enough to prevent the world from tearing them apart but maybe it's enough to save their lives

queer love portrayed not as supernaturally resilient or invincible (god knows it isn't), but as a precious fragile thing that can and will grow back over and over in some form no matter what ...

a small detail that kills me in i saw the tv glow is tara’s character is confident, doesnt mess around and is a go getter.

tara in the midnight realm wouldve felt that drive, that knowing feeling that she didnt belong there but she couldnt leave until she found *someone* and wouldve felt that since fucking birth and she would’ve been searching since.

Isabel is a lot more skittish and quicker to hide, less likely to make a scene, but tara has been looking for isabel and *thought* she’d found isabel in amanda- the girl we see tara hanging out with in the first sleepover. tara was always searching for isabel.

but she found her eventually, they *both* found isabel eventually.

also a paralell to this theory i like is isabel trying to find tara in the final episode of season 5 of the pink opaque- failing because tara is buried deep underground but she finds a fake tara instead and it costs her. isabel couldn’t find tara cuz she was buried too deep to scream for help, and tara cant find isabel in the midnight realm cuz shes buried too deep, the soil packed in too tight.

after first watching i saw the tv glow with my mother in our living room, all i could do was sit, for hours afterward, staring at the screen, waiting for more. before my mom went to bed, i was able only to say “i am tara”. i thought the same thing after convincing my friend to watch the film with me as we sat in silence through the entire thing. i am tara. i am waiting and hoping and i am free but i never truly will be without you.

also fucking we have NOT discussed the performance of justice smith in that film enough. what a fantastic job. he hits that sense of awkward confusion and dissociation so perfectly and it makes the scenes where owen actually lets how she feels show absolutely GUTWRENCHING in comparison. i was particularly impressed by his willingness to play every part of owens anguish (e.g. with the wheezing in the final scene). thank you justice smith i love you justice smith

Is revisiting the Pink Opaque really bad and childish and disappointing? Or does Owen want it to be? Because if the memories of the show are incorrect then the memories of dresses and gender euphoria are childish as well. Is it easier to ignore the truth that way? The temporary pain of disappointment in exchange for perceived safety?

i know it was not the point of i saw the tv glow but like i am very interested in the pink opaque and i really want them to make a limited edition tie in episode guide like they made a limited edition physical copy of the babadook book

t-shirt that says i watched i saw the tv glow and all i got was this ache in my chest from an emotion i cant put the name to

The Pink Opaque was a tv show. We watched it in your basement on Saturday nights from 10:30 to 11:00. Remember? The last show before the Young Adult Network switched to black and white reruns for the night.

Yeah. But are you sure? Are you sure that's all it was?

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun

my dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😋 this strain is called "i saw the tv glow" itll have you zoinked out of your gourd 💯

me: yeah whatever. i dont feel shit

5 hours later: dude i swear my living body is somewhere under the ground buried alive and i'm here to get my beating heart back

my best friend maddytara pacing around the room: this isn’t normal. this isn’t normal. this isn’t how life is supposed to be.

What about you? Do you like girls? Boys? I... I think that I like TV shows.

I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun

i saw the tv glow is a beautiful tragic queer film about how repressiing yourself will destroy you from the inside out. that said the in-universe tara/isabel the pink opaque femslash fandom probably went so hard

i saw the tv glow is awesome bc its terrifying in a transgender "if i keep pushing this down and down and down i will be slowly letting myself die" way but also its even just scary as "a man in the moon traps you in a dimension out of time built to psychologically torture you with suburbia"

i just. when owen tried on isabel's magic dress and maddy blushed and smiled and hid in her hand. the intimacy in how she drew the symbol on the back of owen's neck. an out lesbian showing those feelings for a closeted, pre-transition trans girl who doesn't even seem to know that's true of herself yet. knowing her before she knows herself. don't speak to me i'm literally dust on the floor

thinking a lot about the almost.. homoeroticism of isabel and tara’s relationship (or at least the glimpses we get of it) and its implications in relation to maddy and owen’s

thinking about "i even got a family of my own. i love them more than anything :/" with the tortured expression on owen's face and the fact that we never meet this family because they're not real in a way that matters. the LG TV product placement during this scene was almost distracting, but then owen lifts the box so the phrase "life's good" is in frame, and you can see so clearly that life is not good for this person fhjdkfnf

I saw the tv glow is crazy bc it’s a movie that genuinely makes you watch how your life could fall apart. Makes you watch how heavily repression can affect your life and how dangerous and sad it can be. But at the same time it’s like “hey, if you’re still alive there is still time, so keep going.”

I’ve genuinely never watched a movie that has given me so much sadness, but let’s me find a sense of hope, no matter how bittersweet, within that devastation.

i saw the tv glow is a beautiful tragic queer film about how repressiing yourself will destroy you from the inside out. that said the in-universe tara/isabel the pink opaque femslash fandom probably went so hard

i just. when owen tried on isabel's magic dress and maddy blushed and smiled and hid in her hand. the intimacy in how she drew the symbol on the back of owen's neck. an out lesbian showing those feelings for a closeted, pre-transition trans girl who doesn't even seem to know that's true of herself yet. knowing her before she knows herself. don't speak to me i'm literally dust on the floor

I Saw the TV Glow is such a uniquely, devastatingly queer story. Two queer kids trapped in suburbia. Both of them sensing something isn’t quite right with their lives. Both of them knowing that wrongness could kill them. One of them getting out, trying on new names, new places, new ways of being. Trying to claw her way to fully understanding herself, trying to grasp the true reality of her existence. Succeeding. Going back to help the other, to try so desperately to rescue an old friend, to show the path forward. Being called crazy. Because, to someone who hasn’t gotten out, even trying seems crazy. Feels crazy. Looks, on the surface, like dying.

And to have that other queer kid be so terrified of the internal revolution that is accepting himself that he inadvertently stays buried. Stays in a situation that will suffocate him. Choke the life out of him. Choke the joy out of him. Have him so terrified of possibly being crazy that he, instead, lives with a repression so extreme, it quite literally is killing him. And still, still, he apologizes for it. Apologizes over and over and over, to people who don’t see him. Who never have. Who never will. Because it’s better than being crazy. Because it’s safer than digging his way out. Killing the image everyone sees to rise again as something free and true and authentic. My god. My god, this movie. It shattered me.

The Pink Opaque was a tv show. We watched it in your basement on Saturday nights from 10:30 to 11:00. Remember? The last show before the Young Adult Network switched to black and white reruns for the night.

Yeah. But are you sure? Are you sure that's all it was?

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun

the way that in the pink opaque, tara and isabel only met in the first episode and then only communicated through their psychic link throughout the rest of the series and didn't see each other in person and how owen watched their first episode of the pink opaque with maddy but then after that was only able to watch it through the tapes maddy left them in the dark room, not even giving them to owen in person